#mutilation cw
The Blackmuir Reign: You Need Not Fear Me
Summary: brief moment before we finally write The Letter. The Henry lookalike kid won’t give Therrin any information.
CW: ***whump of a minor*** (the Henry lookalike boy has suffered a horrific punishment from someone, making Therrin and Rudy even more suspicious of the claims about his heritage. The main characters do not/will not not harm him) mouth whump/body modification/mutilation that has already happened. Medieval/fantasy setting
“You need not fear me,” King Therrin said to the Usurper’s alleged son.
Something like longing stirred in Matteo’s chest. Though the words were not for him, it seemed they still applied. To his dismay he saw the red haired Knight, Rudy, watching him. He glanced away from the King as quickly as he could, his face heating in embarrassment.
The boy had not spoken a word since Matteo and Therrin had entered the room. He’d stopped eating the plate of black bread and goat’s cheese that he’d been picking at before, quiet and somber.
Matteo saw the resemblance immediately. It was in the set of the eyes, the shape of those nose, the jaw. It was striking, though impossible to pin down to one definite feature. He remembered Prince Henry as he’d first met him— in a tunic of Truly white, riding into his father’s camp on horseback, muddy from a scout and smiling.
“I have some questions, as I’m sure you’ve guessed,” Therrin said, in the same tone as if he were speaking to one of them. His blue eyes searched the boy’s face, flicking back and forth. “There are no wrong answers. I ask only that the answers you give me are honest. If you don’t know an answer, that’s okay too. Just tell me you don’t know, and we’ll move on.”
The boy’s nostrils flared slightly and his jaw jumped. He pulled his hands into his lap, staring at the remaining bread on the plate. His chest rose and fell faster. Up close, Matteo could see the shadow of a bruise on the boy’s cheek.
“Will you not answer your King?” Rudy nudged. The Knight looked huge next to a boy of twelve, like two men stacked together and wearing partial armor, a broadsword at his hip. His reddish beard had begun to grow back in, partially obscuring a scar on his chin that shaving had revealed.
The boy looked at Rudy apologetically, his eyes big and pleading. He began to appear visibly distressed, looking at each of them in turn. Matteo wondered briefly what Henry might have done in Therrin’s place, but pushed it away quickly. Once, he would’ve laughed at the idea that Therrin was a better King than Henry. But no one knew Henry. Not really. Not even he knew the real Henry, until it was too late.
At last he turned to the Knight and opened his mouth, though no sound came out. Rudy leaned closer, taking the boy by the chin to tilt his face up an inch and peer past his teeth into his mouth. His face fell in a moment of pure disbelief before it grew hard and unreadable again.
“Fucking Hell,” the Knight muttered. Gently, with two fingers, he closed the boy’s mouth by pressing up on his chin. The boy pulled his legs up on his chair and hid his face in his arms, resting his forehead on his knees.
“He’s not being difficult,” Rudy said gruffly. “Someone’s cut half his tongue out. And fairly recently.”
Matteo rubbed the spot where the knuckle of his pinkie used to be. If this boy was indeed Henry’s, it was like a piece of him was still walking the earth. He wasn’t sure if it was that or the cruelty that had been done to the boy making him so uneasy.
“Who did this?” Therrin nearly whispered, to keep the anger out of his voice. “That nobleman? Burns? He dares?”
Rudy looked at the child with weathered, resigned sympathy. He put a hand on his back, and rubbed a gentle circle with his big hand. “Can you write, little one? Do you know your letters?”
The boy only burrowed his head deeper into his forearms. Rudy kept rubbing circles, did not push any further.
“I forbade loss of life or limb as punishment without my express permission,” Therrin said. “I do not want to hear they’ve started cutting out tongues because it does not constitute as a limb. And a boy of twelve summers? Did they do this so he could not confirm or deny their allegations about Henry?”
“He can still shake his head yes or no,” Matteo pointed out. “Even if he does not read or write, and cannot speak.”
“Not if he’s been threatened sufficiently,” Rudy said darkly. “If you ask me, the poor thing’s terrified to communicate with us at all.”
“Then this will not help,” Therrin said, drawing his finger in a circle at the three of them there, speaking of him as if he wasn’t present. “Find out what you can, Rudy. I want him to understand he’s not going to be hurt.” He spoke in the boy’s direction. He was likely listening, even if he could not speak. “Not here. Not with us.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“Matteo?”
Matteo pulled his gaze from the boy’s coppery bowed head, thinking morbidly of what it would feel like to have his jaw forced open and his tongue cut from his head.
“Come with me. We’ve a letter to write.”
He followed Therrin from the room, his feet like blocks of stone.
The Letter. This minor complication was not a distraction from the real issue— a potential rebellion or resistance in the south.
Therrin waited for Matteo to fall in step beside him in the hall. They walked alongside one another instead of Therrin leading.
“What did you think?” he asked.
“He’s… he looks like him,” Matteo admitted. “Like Henry.”
Therrin sighed. “I still think it’s weak evidence for murder. I bet you could find a child passable for a Truly in every village in the Muirlands. We start killing everyone in the north who resembles a dead King and we’re going to have a lot of blood on our hands.”
We, Matteo noticed. Our. 
“What are you going to do, Your Grace?”
Therrin stopped. Matteo did too. Therrin looked up the hallway to make sure they were alone before cupping Matteo’s face in both hands.
“I’m going to convince you to call me Therrin again, first,” the King said, looking straight into Matteo’s eyes. “And write to your big brother in the hopes we are still friends, and keep my head and my crown both.”
“You’re not going to mention Martin Spearly?” Matteo asked. It was easier to be direct like this, with his face in Therrin’s hands. He was braver than if the King was across a room. “About the rebellion?”
Therrin let him go. They began to walk again. “If I have my way, we’ll never speak of it again.”
The Blackmuir Reign: You Need Not Fear Me
Summary: brief moment before we finally write The Letter. The Henry lookalike kid won’t give Therrin any information.
CW: ***whump of a minor*** (the Henry lookalike boy has suffered a horrific punishment from someone, making Therrin and Rudy even more suspicious of the claims about his heritage. The main characters do not/will not not harm him) mouth whump/body modification/mutilation that has already happened. Medieval/fantasy setting
“You need not fear me,” King Therrin said to the Usurper’s alleged son.
Something like longing stirred in Matteo’s chest. Though the words were not for him, it seemed they still applied. To his dismay he saw the red haired Knight, Rudy, watching him. He glanced away from the King as quickly as he could, his face heating in embarrassment.
The boy had not spoken a word since Matteo and Therrin had entered the room. He’d stopped eating the plate of black bread and goat’s cheese that he’d been picking at before, quiet and somber.
Matteo saw the resemblance immediately. It was in the set of the eyes, the shape of those nose, the jaw. It was striking, though impossible to pin down to one definite feature. He remembered Prince Henry as he’d first met him— in a tunic of Truly white, riding into his father’s camp on horseback, muddy from a scout and smiling.
“I have some questions, as I’m sure you’ve guessed,” Therrin said, in the same tone as if he were speaking to one of them. His blue eyes searched the boy’s face, flicking back and forth. “There are no wrong answers. I ask only that the answers you give me are honest. If you don’t know an answer, that’s okay too. Just tell me you don’t know, and we’ll move on.”
The boy’s nostrils flared slightly and his jaw jumped. He pulled his hands into his lap, staring at the remaining bread on the plate. His chest rose and fell faster. Up close, Matteo could see the shadow of a bruise on the boy’s cheek.
“Will you not answer your King?” Rudy nudged. The Knight looked huge next to a boy of twelve, like two men stacked together and wearing partial armor, a broadsword at his hip. His reddish beard had begun to grow back in, partially obscuring a scar on his chin that shaving had revealed.
The boy looked at Rudy apologetically, his eyes big and pleading. He began to appear visibly distressed, looking at each of them in turn. Matteo wondered briefly what Henry might have done in Therrin’s place, but pushed it away quickly. Once, he would’ve laughed at the idea that Therrin was a better King than Henry. But no one knew Henry. Not really. Not even he knew the real Henry, until it was too late.
At last he turned to the Knight and opened his mouth, though no sound came out. Rudy leaned closer, taking the boy by the chin to tilt his face up an inch and peer past his teeth into his mouth. His face fell in a moment of pure disbelief before it grew hard and unreadable again.
“Fucking Hell,” the Knight muttered. Gently, with two fingers, he closed the boy’s mouth by pressing up on his chin. The boy pulled his legs up on his chair and hid his face in his arms, resting his forehead on his knees.
“He’s not being difficult,” Rudy said gruffly. “Someone’s cut half his tongue out. And fairly recently.”
Matteo rubbed the spot where the knuckle of his pinkie used to be. If this boy was indeed Henry’s, it was like a piece of him was still walking the earth. He wasn’t sure if it was that or the cruelty that had been done to the boy making him so uneasy.
“Who did this?” Therrin nearly whispered, to keep the anger out of his voice. “That nobleman? Burns? He dares?”
Rudy looked at the child with weathered, resigned sympathy. He put a hand on his back, and rubbed a gentle circle with his big hand. “Can you write, little one? Do you know your letters?”
The boy only burrowed his head deeper into his forearms. Rudy kept rubbing circles, did not push any further.
“I forbade loss of life or limb as punishment without my express permission,” Therrin said. “I do not want to hear they’ve started cutting out tongues because it does not constitute as a limb. And a boy of twelve summers? Did they do this so he could not confirm or deny their allegations about Henry?”
“He can still shake his head yes or no,” Matteo pointed out. “Even if he does not read or write, and cannot speak.”
“Not if he’s been threatened sufficiently,” Rudy said darkly. “If you ask me, the poor thing’s terrified to communicate with us at all.”
“Then this will not help,” Therrin said, drawing his finger in a circle at the three of them there, speaking of him as if he wasn’t present. “Find out what you can, Rudy. I want him to understand he’s not going to be hurt.” He spoke in the boy’s direction. He was likely listening, even if he could not speak. “Not here. Not with us.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“Matteo?”
Matteo pulled his gaze from the boy’s coppery bowed head, thinking morbidly of what it would feel like to have his jaw forced open and his tongue cut from his head.
“Come with me. We’ve a letter to write.”
He followed Therrin from the room, his feet like blocks of stone.
The Letter. This minor complication was not a distraction from the real issue— a potential rebellion or resistance in the south.
Therrin waited for Matteo to fall in step beside him in the hall. They walked alongside one another instead of Therrin leading.
“What did you think?” he asked.
“He’s… he looks like him,” Matteo admitted. “Like Henry.”
Therrin sighed. “I still think it’s weak evidence for murder. I bet you could find a child passable for a Truly in every village in the Muirlands. We start killing everyone in the north who resembles a dead King and we’re going to have a lot of blood on our hands.”
We, Matteo noticed. Our. 
“What are you going to do, Your Grace?”
Therrin stopped. Matteo did too. Therrin looked up the hallway to make sure they were alone before cupping Matteo’s face in both hands.
“I’m going to convince you to call me Therrin again, first,” the King said, looking straight into Matteo’s eyes. “And write to your big brother in the hopes we are still friends, and keep my head and my crown both.”
“You’re not going to mention Martin Spearly?” Matteo asked. It was easier to be direct like this, with his face in Therrin’s hands. He was braver than if the King was across a room. “About the rebellion?”
Therrin let him go. They began to walk again. “If I have my way, we’ll never speak of it again.”
The Blackmuir Reign Snippet: The Knight and the Boy
CW: **whump of a minor** in the past, but resulted in permanent mutilation/injury (the boy doesn’t speak because of the fairly recent removal of his tongue) hurt/comfort, fear of punishment, communication issues, past abuse and threats, serious hand injury (Rudy).
-
“Youdo know your letters, don’t you?”
The boy’s eyes flew to his, realizing his mistake. He’d been caught reading the ornamental inscription of an antique dagger. It was a dirty trick, but Rudy knew he’d be interested in a blade like that one and brought it to show him. He’d watched his eyes to see how they landed on the script, if they followed from left to right with any comprehension.
“It would do everyone some good if you would answer questions on paper for us, you know. We could keep it to yes or no.”
The boy looked away, all the color drained from his face. The dagger sat innocently on the tabletop. By my side or in my enemy’s, the hiltread in an earlier from of Muirish. Most native speakers still found it intelligible, if stilted.
Rudy sighed, re-tucking the end of the bandage that wound around his hand. The last two fingers no longer moved. If that was going to change or not, time would tell. It had been worth it to see the brute who would cut out a child’s tongue bleeding lifeless in the dirt. He only wished he’d had the luxury of making it last a little longer. Of making it painful.
“King Therrin is a good man, you know. He grew up as a ward in the far south. Not some spoiled, unworldly Prince waiting to inherit a Kingdom. I wouldn’t have ridden against the crown to take the capital with just anyone.”
The boy flashed a glance from under his floppy copper hair, so like that of the dead Usurper. He seemed to perk up at talk of battles, of riding in the vanguard against terrible odds. Rudy had seen him mesmerized in the Great Hall, hanging on the every word of a bard’s new song about the siege.
“Look at this. What if I placed an apple here.” He took a red and yellow apple from its wooden bowl (sour little things they were, this far north). “And a cup here…” He placed a pewter cup opposite the apple. “Apple means yes. Cup means no. You point at the apple or the cup to answer, and I don’t tell the King you know your letters. Would you answer some questions for us then?”
The boy stared at the apple. His mouth grew pale and tight whenever he was afraid, and Rudy didn’t know if it had anything to do with what happened, like he was clenching his jaw and holding his lips tight together to protect where he’d been hurt. His little heart began to pound— Rudy could see the rhythmic shiver of his tunic at the armpit.
“Someone told you not to talk to us,” he said flatly. Not a question. “Someone who hurt you.”
Quick green eyes met his. It was the loudest yes he’d ever heard, but still the boy did give an answer in any tangible way.
Rudy would gladly tell him he put his knife through the Tongue Cutter’s throat and opened it like gutting a trout if he did not think it would steal an innocence he could not put back. He wanted the boy to have no inkling of responsibility for that death. The blood was on his hands, and his alone.
“What if the King wasn’t there?” Rudy tried instead. “Would you answer questions for me?”
Rudy thought the apple might spontaneously combust from the intensity of the gaze on it.
“What if we start with you writing your name on a piece of paper? Your name is yours to give to anyone you please, is it not?”
He had pushed too much. To his dismay, the boy began to cry— a sudden welling of tears he turned away to swipe at with his sleeve as if embarrassed.
“Alright now, hey,” Rudy soothed. “It’s just me, little one. You’re not in trouble. We’re just looking for a way to talk to you.”
He placed a hand on the boy’s head and he turned quickly, nearly throwing himself into the Knight’s arms.
Rudy folded him against his chest and held him gently, loose enough he could get away if he wanted. The boy sobbed once— a hoarse, strained sound from a voice that has fallen into disuse and hugged him back tightly, as if someone were going to try and pull him away.
Rudy thought of the Tongue Cutter’s knife, how it had felt as he pulled him closer by his blade to kill him. He wondered if the boy had been cut by the same knife that sliced the flesh of his hand.
I’d have let him cut my sword hand too, if it would take back what they did to you.
He pulled away just far enough so he could take the little foxlike face in his hands. The boy looked up at him, openly trusting even though it was a Knight who had hurt him, in the same garb and armor as Rudy wore.
“I won’t tell the King you know your letters,” he promised. “And no one’s going to hurt you. Do you know that? I won’t let them.”
The boy nodded sharply, giving a tiny whimper on an exhale that would break the heart of even a soldier as weathered as himself.
“And what is this thing?” Rudy asked, plucking at the sleeve of the plain, shapeless tunic the servants in the kitchens had given him to wear. “If you dress in a potato sack, you’ll get confused for the potatoes. That’s what happened to the last kitchen boy, didn’t they tell you?”
He looked down at his ill fitting tunic and grinned through tears.
“They’ll throw you right in the soup,” Rudy said, and pulled a clean linen from his pocket he intended as spare bandage for his hand. He swiped gently at the boy’s cheeks with it, then let him take over himself. He took the linen a little sheepishly, dabbing it on his eyes until they were dry.
“Come,” Rudy said. “Let’s get you away from those kitchens for a while. Have you ever swung a steel sword? Even in practice?”
His eyes went bright, excited as any young boy at the prospect of wielding something dangerous. He shook his head no, he hadn’t, and dropped his gaze to the hilt of Rudy’s broadsword.
“Not that one,” Rudy laughed. “That’ll flip you right over. There’s lighter ones in the yard, to learn on. Come on. I’ll take you.”
The Blackmuir Reign: You Need Not Fear Me
Summary: brief moment before we finally write The Letter. The Henry lookalike kid won’t give Therrin any information.
CW: ***whump of a minor*** (the Henry lookalike boy has suffered a horrific punishment from someone, making Therrin and Rudy even more suspicious of the claims about his heritage. The main characters do not/will not not harm him) mouth whump/body modification/mutilation that has already happened. Medieval/fantasy setting
“You need not fear me,” King Therrin said to the Usurper’s alleged son.
Something like longing stirred in Matteo’s chest. Though the words were not for him, it seemed they still applied. To his dismay he saw the red haired Knight, Rudy, watching him. He glanced away from the King as quickly as he could, his face heating in embarrassment.
The boy had not spoken a word since Matteo and Therrin had entered the room. He’d stopped eating the plate of black bread and goat’s cheese that he’d been picking at before, quiet and somber.
Matteo saw the resemblance immediately. It was in the set of the eyes, the shape of those nose, the jaw. It was striking, though impossible to pin down to one definite feature. He remembered Prince Henry as he’d first met him— in a tunic of Truly white, riding into his father’s camp on horseback, muddy from a scout and smiling.
“I have some questions, as I’m sure you’ve guessed,” Therrin said, in the same tone as if he were speaking to one of them. His blue eyes searched the boy’s face, flicking back and forth. “There are no wrong answers. I ask only that the answers you give me are honest. If you don’t know an answer, that’s okay too. Just tell me you don’t know, and we’ll move on.”
The boy’s nostrils flared slightly and his jaw jumped. He pulled his hands into his lap, staring at the remaining bread on the plate. His chest rose and fell faster. Up close, Matteo could see the shadow of a bruise on the boy’s cheek.
“Will you not answer your King?” Rudy nudged. The Knight looked huge next to a boy of twelve, like two men stacked together and wearing partial armor, a broadsword at his hip. His reddish beard had begun to grow back in, partially obscuring a scar on his chin that shaving had revealed.
The boy looked at Rudy apologetically, his eyes big and pleading. He began to appear visibly distressed, looking at each of them in turn. Matteo wondered briefly what Henry might have done in Therrin’s place, but pushed it away quickly. Once, he would’ve laughed at the idea that Therrin was a better King than Henry. But no one knew Henry. Not really. Not even he knew the real Henry, until it was too late.
At last he turned to the Knight and opened his mouth, though no sound came out. Rudy leaned closer, taking the boy by the chin to tilt his face up an inch and peer past his teeth into his mouth. His face fell in a moment of pure disbelief before it grew hard and unreadable again.
“Fucking Hell,” the Knight muttered. Gently, with two fingers, he closed the boy’s mouth by pressing up on his chin. The boy pulled his legs up on his chair and hid his face in his arms, resting his forehead on his knees.
“He’s not being difficult,” Rudy said gruffly. “Someone’s cut half his tongue out. And fairly recently.”
Matteo rubbed the spot where the knuckle of his pinkie used to be. If this boy was indeed Henry’s, it was like a piece of him was still walking the earth. He wasn’t sure if it was that or the cruelty that had been done to the boy making him so uneasy.
“Who did this?” Therrin nearly whispered, to keep the anger out of his voice. “That nobleman? Burns? He dares?”
Rudy looked at the child with weathered, resigned sympathy. He put a hand on his back, and rubbed a gentle circle with his big hand. “Can you write, little one? Do you know your letters?”
The boy only burrowed his head deeper into his forearms. Rudy kept rubbing circles, did not push any further.
“I forbade loss of life or limb as punishment without my express permission,” Therrin said. “I do not want to hear they’ve started cutting out tongues because it does not constitute as a limb. And a boy of twelve summers? Did they do this so he could not confirm or deny their allegations about Henry?”
“He can still shake his head yes or no,” Matteo pointed out. “Even if he does not read or write, and cannot speak.”
“Not if he’s been threatened sufficiently,” Rudy said darkly. “If you ask me, the poor thing’s terrified to communicate with us at all.”
“Then this will not help,” Therrin said, drawing his finger in a circle at the three of them there, speaking of him as if he wasn’t present. “Find out what you can, Rudy. I want him to understand he’s not going to be hurt.” He spoke in the boy’s direction. He was likely listening, even if he could not speak. “Not here. Not with us.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“Matteo?”
Matteo pulled his gaze from the boy’s coppery bowed head, thinking morbidly of what it would feel like to have his jaw forced open and his tongue cut from his head.
“Come with me. We’ve a letter to write.”
He followed Therrin from the room, his feet like blocks of stone.
The Letter. This minor complication was not a distraction from the real issue— a potential rebellion or resistance in the south.
Therrin waited for Matteo to fall in step beside him in the hall. They walked alongside one another instead of Therrin leading.
“What did you think?” he asked.
“He’s… he looks like him,” Matteo admitted. “Like Henry.”
Therrin sighed. “I still think it’s weak evidence for murder. I bet you could find a child passable for a Truly in every village in the Muirlands. We start killing everyone in the north who resembles a dead King and we’re going to have a lot of blood on our hands.”
We, Matteo noticed. Our. 
“What are you going to do, Your Grace?”
Therrin stopped. Matteo did too. Therrin looked up the hallway to make sure they were alone before cupping Matteo’s face in both hands.
“I’m going to convince you to call me Therrin again, first,” the King said, looking straight into Matteo’s eyes. “And write to your big brother in the hopes we are still friends, and keep my head and my crown both.”
“You’re not going to mention Martin Spearly?” Matteo asked. It was easier to be direct like this, with his face in Therrin’s hands. He was braver than if the King was across a room. “About the rebellion?”
Therrin let him go. They began to walk again. “If I have my way, we’ll never speak of it again.”
Oh
